Loki's Queen
by jetplanejane
Summary: Jane dreams while Loki schemes. Blaming Thor for his devastating loss and finding comfort in Jane, Loki begins his seduction of Asgard's future queen. Set just after the events of Thor: The Dark World. AU, but major movie spoilers. Lokane, minor Jane/Thor.


Jane watched helplessly as Loki raised the knife against the sky and brought it down, severing Thor's hand above his gauntleted wrist. She opened her mouth to scream but all that poured out was the velvet darkness of the Aether.

"Jane." The voice was calm but insistent. It wanted her to do something. It wanted her to wake up.

She came to on her back, eyes wide, with the lingering sensation that her skin was smoking with roiling tendrils of Lovecraftian energy. Jane sat upright, her sweat-damp clothing clinging uncomfortably to her spine, and swatted at her arms. She stopped, abruptly, when she became aware of Loki kneeled at her bedside, watching her like she'd gone well and truly mad.

"Loki."

"They heard you screaming," he offered, almost apologetically, indicating the two guards standing on the threshold of her bedroom. "I'm sure half of Asgard did." He wondered what could have made Jane Foster scream like that.

The astrophysicist looked embarrassed. "Sorry." Had Thor told him about her nightmares? "Just a bad dream. Really, I'm fine."

Loki dismissed the unconvincing lie and the guards, and rose to his feet.

Her eyes followed him. "Don't tell Thor?" Although he was aware of her restless nights, it wasn't a problem he could lob Mjölnir at. Instead he fretted helplessly, and that was precisely what Jane _didn't_ want. In the aftermath of the Dark Elves' attack on Asgard, its new king had enough to deal with without worrying about her.

Loki hesitated just long enough to give the impression that he thought this omission was perhaps not in either of their best interests. But it pleased him that she was already keeping secrets from Thor – even one as seemingly insignificant as this. What else did she not tell him? And what else might she share with Loki with the proper encouragement? "I have a good ear – two, actually – if you care to tell me what troubles you."

She didn't, not really, but Jane had been a witness to his redemption. He was not the same as in New York. She had seen him prepared to sacrifice his life for Thor's. That may not have swayed Odin, who had abdicated and was resigned in his grief over Frigga, or the ever-vigilant Heimdall, but neither of them were king. Thor was, and his first order of business had been to set aside Loki's sentence and restore his princehood.

"_Our mother would have wanted it, brother."_

Loki had smiled, humbly, like a true son of Asgard, but privately he'd thought: _You've no right to speak of her after what you did _not_ do, and I am _not_ your brother_. They were all of them fools to think his so-called "sacrifice" anything more than a means to an end.

"I think I'm going a little bit crazy, actually," she found herself saying, as she met his attentive, clear-eyed gaze. It was like a mirror lake, showing nothing of the depth and darkness beneath, only what it saw reflected back.

"Tell me," Loki said, inviting himself to sit at the edge of her bed.

What little memory Jane had of her experience haunted her dreams. Something ancient, powerful and patient as the stars tried to suffocate her in the dark. "I feel different." As if her encounter with the Aether had left a stain on her mind.

It occurred to Loki that she wanted him to lie to her. _Why?_ But he knew, intimately, the answer to that: simple truths were far crueler than the most elaborate lies. "You _are_ different," he pointed out.

The power of the Infinity Stones was never meant to be wielded by fragile human creatures. That Jane had survived her encounter with one's raw power was a testament to her strength, both in mind and body; something to be admired and respected. Certainly, Loki had begun to take a different view of her.

Jane thought about that naïve astrophysicist she'd been, chasing bright lights and fallen gods in the desert. It felt like a half-forgotten childhood. She did not want to be different, did not want to grow up.

"If it's any consolation," Loki continued, "the Infinity Stones can't change the essence of who or what we are. Which, in your case, can't be too terrible. My mother thought you worth saving."

She had not expected him to mention Frigga, or at least she had hoped he wouldn't. "Do you hate me?"

"Hate you?" His brows knitted gravely. "I don't understand." While it was true that he'd once hated the _idea_ of Jane: that a woman – a _mortal_ – could weaken the resolve of the mighty Thor, it had never been anything personal.

Thor had told Jane how he'd found Loki. His brother had spilled his own blood in his rage and grief at the news of Frigga's death. The goddess had loved her sons equally, but she had always been closer to Loki. It was she who had taught him magic and she who had appealed to the unsympathetic Odin. "I…Because of me, she…"

"You _can't_ believe that," Loki said, with the urgency of someone trying to counsel another from a dangerous path. His mother's final act in this world had been to keep the Aether and its vessel from Malekith. "She died for Asgard, for you, not because of you."

That difference was all-important to Loki. It was the weakness and carelessness of Heimdell and Odin and _Thor _– their colossal, _unforgiveable_ failure to act in time – that had cost Frigga her life. How Loki hated them for it.

Frigga had been as much his mother as Odin was _not _his father. How easily he discarded the truth that his birth-mother was nothing more than one of Laufey's concubines – a Jotun whore. Frigga had loved him: through all his disappointments and their estrangement and his denial of their kinship, she had _loved_ him. And then she had been taken from him. _I could have saved her_. If he had not been left to rot in Asgard's dungeons. They had not even bothered to tell him she was dead until after her funeral. They had denied him the comfort of a final farewell. There were things now that he could not say or take back; an absolution that would never come. Loki would make them, all of them – but most especially Thor – pay for that.

"I'm sorry," Jane said. _For Frigga, for your loss_. The sentiment sounded even more inadequate and inarticulate than when she had expressed it to Thor. Did Loki even care for her sympathy?

"We will see one another again." But there was a sadness about his reassuring thin-lipped smile; an ever-lasting regret. "Think no more of it. Our slate –" Loki touched his hand to his chest – "is clean. At least from my side." Because he hadn't forgotten the sting of her reprisal across his cheek. He was quite sure she hadn't either.

"I never thanked you for what you did for us…Thor and me, out there, in that place."

Jane remembered his second betrayal on the volcanic scree of the Svartalfheim waste, as the spell he had cast on Thor came undone; the noise of thunder in her ears and Mjölnir's battle-song overhead. And then Loki had thrown himself on her, shielding her from the chaos and ruin.

"I wanted to avenge Frigga," he said, simply, as if Jane's life had been nothing more than a consequence of that.

"You still didn't have to do what you did."

He smiled. "Thor's great love and the future queen of Asgard? I rather think I did. If any more harm had come to you, I would never have heard the end of it."

And his mother's death would have seemed to him even more unnecessary.

"And here," Jane added, with a weary smile, "I was starting to think it was because you liked me."

"Like you," he corrected. Present tense. The past was imperfect, but she would be his triumph and his redemption. She just didn't know it yet. "I consider you a friend."

She was Thor's woman, his mortal obsession, but if she could love that witless oaf then she could love him. If Jane was the future queen of Asgard and the throne was his birthright then, by that reasoning, she should be his. Loki would make her love him. She would _choose_ him. That would be the sweeter half of Thor's punishment. It would not have been enough to kill him on the battlefield. Not enough to deceive Asgard into thinking Loki Laufeyson was dead and ascend the throne in secret. It was not that he wanted Thor _dead_. Frigga's passing had pushed them beyond that. No, Loki wanted Thor to suffer, to know rejection and loss and be a prisoner of that knowledge. It would break his spirit, Loki thought, and then he would take the throne.

Thor's great love. The future queen of Asgard. _His_ queen. Jane, wife of Loki. He rather liked the sound of that.

Meanwhile, Jane could not decide if he had missed the joking allusion to their first meeting or if he had perfectly understood. She was maddeningly further from understanding how she felt about the god of mischief than when she'd slapped him.

Sensing her discomfort, Loki said, "I've kept you too long." But now that he was here, she almost didn't want him to leave. "You should try to rest."

"Easy for you to say. I think Asgardian neurobiology is a lot more forgiving than ours." Thor and the palace healers had offered her all manner of bitter teas, but none of them had helped. She'd chalked it up to some fundamental difference in neural patterns. "You wouldn't happen to have something to help me sleep? Maybe send someone to Earth for Ambien?"

Loki looked perplexed. "Who is Ambien?"

"Uh…no one." Jane almost laughed, and resigned herself to another restless night haunted by the memory of the Aether. _I hope I don't wake up screaming again_. "Never mind."

He watched her with practiced sympathy. "There _is_ something I might do to help you."

_Why do I sense a 'but' coming?_ Jane wondered. And then it arrived.

"Thor wouldn't like it."

Now she was _really_ curious. "Why? What is it?"

"I can't stop you from dreaming, Jane, but under the right conditions I might urge you, very strongly, to dream of something else – something that does not terrify you quite so much."

Jane thought she understood the source of Loki's "silvertongued" abilities. It wasn't magic, it was – "Mentalism?" she prompted. "Why would Thor have a problem with that?"

"Because the last time I planted an idea in his head, he defied Odin and attacked Jodunheim."

"Oh." _That_. "This isn't like that. Unless you plan to make me pick a fight with Sif or someone."

"Oh, I wouldn't dream of it."

"Right. So what's the problem? All I want is _one_ good night's sleep."

"It might not even work."

"But it might." She sounded hopeful, and desperate.

It was a perfect combination, but Loki did not want to appear too eager. "Thor," he reminded her, gently.

_Thor_ _isn't the one waking up in a cold sweat, screaming, feeling like he's going crazy_. Love him and trust his judgment as Jane did, he did not make her decisions for her. He couldn't _tell_ her what to do. For that matter, neither could his brother. "He wouldn't have to know."

Loki smiled like the devil come to claim her soul. "I won't tell if you won't."

* * *

Torchlight flames bronzed Thor's profile as he watched Jane sleeping. She was restless, her dancer-lithe body twisted as if she had fallen from a great height. And was that drool on her pillow? Thor shook his head. "What a lovely sight you are."

Kneeling on the veined marble, he palmed her gaunt cheek. "Jane?"

She moaned in her sleep and tried to turn away, as if he was the source of her torment, but he thread his fingers through her perspiration-damp hair and gripped it, pinning her head to the pillow with an uncharacteristic firmness. "Shhh," he hushed. "It's only me."

There was something very wrong with his voice.

Thor, or rather the illusion of him, began to dissolve in a radiant curtain of photons, revealing the true form beneath: hard, lean aristocratic angles; all in predatory greens and sinister black.

When Loki had questioned Jane about what she would have preferred to dream, given the choice, she had suggested a host of unimaginative ideas. But it wasn't as if her choices mattered. She wouldn't even remember the dream until much later and by then it would be almost a part of the fabric of her reality.

He leaned across her and brought his lips close to the shell of her ear. Beneath him, she was warm and as insubstantial as she had felt in Svartalfheim. He was not a little bit tempted to taste her mortal innocence. "Dream of me, Jane Foster, and keep me in your thoughts."

* * *

The following afternoon he came upon her again, looking well-rested and walking hand in hand with the king of Asgard as they emerged from the palace gardens. Thor gestured expansively, his boisterous voice carrying over a distance. He was recounting some amusing adventure or other, but Jane was suddenly distracted by the sight of the god of mischief or, rather, what he was riding.

"You have horses. Here?"

"Of course. Given to us as tribute by your ancestors."

"For those of us who can't actually fly," Loki said, as they approached, "it's the only way to get around Asgard." He brought his horse to a halt. "Hello, Jane…brother."

"Is he friendly?" she asked, stepping tentatively towards the animal.

"_She,_ actually. And, yes, she's very friendly, especially if you rub her forelock."

Grinning stupidly like one of _those_ girls Darcy was always rolling her eyes at, Jane took hold of the reins and began to stroke the horse just beneath it browband. It tolerated her affection, dropping its head slightly as if to accommodate her shorter frame.

"Do you ride?"

She looked up at the prince of Asgard sitting proudly in the saddle. "Me? Oh, no – I mean, yeah, I have ridden before – I enjoy it, I just..." She continued to stroke the silver tuft of horse hair. "…didn't really have much time to do it after I got into grad school."

"That won't do," said Thor. "The queen of Asgard should be an accomplished rider."

"Indeed." Loki's trickster smile dimpled the corners of his mouth. "I'm sure Thor will find the time in his busy schedule to take you."

"Would you like that? To go riding with me?" Her companion put his arm around her.

"Yeah…" But Jane was distracted, again, by Loki's unwavering gaze. She had never felt so thoroughly _looked_ at. It stirred to life a sudden and vivid memory of last night's dream – her first since the Aether and one that, despite its violence, she was only now recollecting: Loki on the battlefield, in hand to hand combat. A warrior, like Thor, hungry for vengeance and the blood of those who had murdered his mother, and fighting for her – Jane – his queen.

_Okay, whoa. Weird_. Where had _that_ come from? Because that was _not_ how it had happened, well at least not the queen part. Jane could not have known that she had entirely underestimated Loki's cleverness with words and his powers of suggestion on a sleep-deprived human mind.

"Then we shall go riding!" Thor declared, like the whole magnificent idea was his. "Tomorrow? Clear my schedule, brother."

It was all but decided.

As they were parting ways, Jane asked Loki, "Will we see you tonight?"

Loki had no taste for the banquets held nightly in Thor's honor; one long self-congratutory feast where the Asgardians fawned over and worshipped their triumphant fool-king. At least Odin had countered his weakness with a measure of brutality. There were also those that still mistrusted Loki and resented his presence – Sif, for one. Well, she was right not to trust him; he could respect her for that, at least. When the time came, if she had the common sense to kneel before him, he might spare her the fate he had planned for the others. In the meantime, he had started inventing clever excuses to be elsewhere, in his own company, but Jane looked so hopeful he thought it a shame to disappoint her. "If the lady wishes it."

"She does." _I do_.

Loki inclined his head slightly in a modest bow. "Then you will see me."

"I'm glad to hear it, brother," said Thor, more serious now. "You've been a hermit lately, and I understand the reason. But it does you no good."

Later, pleased but curious, he asked Jane, "Why did you ask that? Loki is not your favorite person."

There were many reasons, she said. "He's your brother, he saved our lives, you wanted him to be there." I _want him to be there_.

All good answers, Thor thought. "And why are you in so cheerful a mood today?"

She smiled the smile that he had fallen in love with and took him by the hand like he was the only god in her mortal world that she would ever care about. "I had a good night's sleep."


End file.
